The Media’s Response to Vaping: Catch-Up for a Failed Response?

Media coverage on vaping has become more negative and more prolific due to the recent ‘vaping epidemic’ that has incurred over 2,000 hospitalization. Research on vaping has been limited. The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlations between vape use increase and media publication increase and the specific focus of the articles. Using secondary data from Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth conducted in 2016, 2017, and 2018 and data generated through qualitative coding of The New York Times articles on vaping between 2016 and 2018, we find that media publications and vape-use did increase during this time but not in synchronicity. This is expected to be a catch-up for a failed initial response. This study examined the focus of the media, which was primarily the youth